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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

In the spirit of rapprochement with Europe and reorientation away from the United States, it's time to complete the Metrication process in Canada that was stopped prematurely by the Mulroney government.

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[-] glibg@lemmy.ca 59 points 4 months ago

Let's finally move to the ISO 216 standard for paper!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216

[-] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 months ago

Oh please let's

[-] mister_newbie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

But, hear me out.... PC LOAD A4 just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[-] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 4 months ago

I've put every 4 I can find I'm, but it just doesn't work! It seemed especially angry at the fridge magnet ones.

[-] k0e3@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

I was a little confused by the paper sizes when I moved to Japan, but it makes so much sense. I love it now.

[-] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 30 points 4 months ago

When someone asks your height, you answer in centimeters.

[-] socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 months ago

I mean, I can without hesitating. We all should be able to.

[-] TiredCoffee@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 months ago

Howabout meters? 180cm = 1.8m

[-] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago

Centimetres are more commonly used to measure height (e.g., on official government issued IDs)

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 months ago

And honestly the accuracy doesn't hurt here. 170cm vs. 180 is a pretty big difference in how tall someone seems.

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

Yes, obsessing over centimetres is unhealthy.

[-] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago

I know what you're getting at 😆

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Honestly it's just easier for me anyway, because I'm like a quarter short of an inch. If I round down people get confused since they're used to the numbers being padded on top of everything, and if I round up I'm padding the numbers myself.

[-] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 28 points 4 months ago

Can we also double down on getting information only from Canadian Owned and Operated media?

[-] nihilist_hippie@lemmy.ca 20 points 4 months ago

I went to the states a couple years back. Went to a tavern and was deciding on a beer. Bartender overhears I'm Canadian and tells me the size of the pints in decilitres 🙄

For what it's worth, I'm pretty comfortable with FL oz from reading soda cans and stuff. I just find it crazy how unintuitive metric is to some.

I appreciated his effort, I just thought it was funny

[-] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 16 points 4 months ago

Decilitre is actually the common unit for drinks in Hungary (and possibly in other countries). Hungarians also use dekagramm, which is 10 grams. But the cool thing about metric is that to convert, you just move the decimal around!

[-] BreadOven@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

A lot of my European beer glasses have dL on them. Offhand I can think of duchesse (Belgium), and Delirium Tremens (also Belgium). Okay, maybe it's just beers from Belgium, I'd have to take a look.

[-] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

"I'd have to take a look."

Sounds like you have booked a special evening in the pub: "Can I try the next beer please?"

[-] BreadOven@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Haha. It's for purely scientific research.

[-] hydration9806@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 months ago

The cool thing is, it's still an easy conversion to bring it back to a familiar unit!

[-] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago

To be fair, pints in the US are 95 mL smaller than pints in Canada, so it's at least a good reminder.

The states has this funny thing where when they do use metric, like in medicine, they often still use weird-ass nonstandard metric options, like decilitres. I imagine if they eventually switch their unit of weight is going to be something like "well, one fornoy is exactly how much a litre of crude oil weighs"

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[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

I hate fucking fl.oz. I understand cups, teaspoons and tablespoons, but then there's the odd recipe that uses 'fl.oz.' and I always have to go look it up.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago

Yeah, what the hell is a florida ounce anyway?

[-] AmosBurton_ThatGuy@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago

An ounce of fentanyl

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[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

When did Florida make their own standard oz?

[-] Dearche@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

That's just ridiculous. The pint is a measurement unit in itself. The fact that the bartender didn't seem to be aware of that fact is a failure of the imperial system in itself, though not really a surprise since the system relies entirely on memorizing arbitrary values that have no connection with other units.

Though admittedly, the US pint is smaller than the British pint, so there is justification of pointing that out.

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[-] brax@sh.itjust.works 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Let's move to metric time!

1000 milliseconds in a second
100 seconds in a minute
100 minutes in an hour
100 hours in a day
100 days in a month
100 months in a year.

We'd be so young!

[EDIT] Guys, I thought it was obvious I was saying this in jest... My b

[-] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 19 points 4 months ago

The French actually tried it, here's the Wikipedia article.

A more reasonable thing to do is something like Swatch Internet Time, you get 1000 ".beats" in a day with no time zones. Beyond a day it might not be too helpful to keep decimal, there will be 365+fraction days a year no matter how you measure it.

[-] brax@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

I think this is what Phantasy Star Online used back in the day!

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, unfortunately for time we're tied to space-stuff. A day will always be useful, so will a year. A lunar month is not as useful as it once was, probably not necessary as a primary unit.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 months ago

Well, if you're on Earth, anyway.

[-] rbos@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 months ago

Seconds are already an SI unit. We'd have to redo every textbook, and overcome centuries of work.

[-] nik282000@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago

One day is a Dec, 10 Decs in a Wec, 10 Wecs in a Mec and 100 Mecs in a Yec. Your days are split into Ceti-decs and Micro-decs!

[-] brax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

It's so unhinged, I love it. Need to write a calendar app and clock for it.

[-] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

Lemmy is serious business!

[-] TiredCoffee@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

Didn't downvote but TPO my dude

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

[French revolution intensifies]

Unfortunately with dates you also want to incorporate the natural cycles of the earth and sun, which not only aren't decimal but usually incommensurable, so it's a hard thing to do. The French just had a block of their calendar that didn't count as "real" days IIRC.

If we start seriously going to space, doing everything by Unix epoch (count of seconds since the 60's ended) would make sense, and planning your day might well go by kiloseconds. Someone on here suggested giving up on standardised time zones and just doing everything long-distance that way even on Earth, which grew on me as an idea.

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[-] Undearius@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Starting from 1 year being 365 days

1 month would be the equivalent of 3.65 days
1 day would be 52.5 minutes
1 hour would be 31.5 seconds
1 minute would be 0.3 seconds
1 second would be 3 milliseconds
1 millisecond would be 3 nanoseconds

[-] Loki66@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago

Metric system is meant for clever people.

[-] Obi@sopuli.xyz 26 points 4 months ago

Not really, the system itself is clever but it's made for everyone, very simple to use.

[-] orbitz@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

If they bother to understand it that is. Base 10 is so simple for metric don't know why we haven't adopted it everywhere, I say that knowing weight in pounds and height in feet / inches, cause who wants to convert everything? But still, would have been better to understand that way from school teachings and used Canada wide.

[-] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 8 points 4 months ago

The system is made for those who create and those who don't know which way to hold an hammer. and it works, that's the beauty of it.

Imperial is just made for peasants in 870s and people who are on still on that level of education.

[-] jlow@beehaw.org 11 points 4 months ago

Can we get the UK on board with this as well? (Maybe when they rejoin the EU? And let's drive on the same site of the road as 98% of the planet while we're on it).

[-] Pipster 2 points 4 months ago

Other than miles most of our stuff is metric anyway, at least legally. Like yeah, we use stones and feet for 'human' measurements in speech etc but if you go to the doctors it would be in kilos and metres. There are a few oddities like milk bottles being in pints and beer in pubs but even then you find things like plant milks and bottles/canned beer in litres. The one that really makes no sense is car fuel efficiency. We sell fuel by the litre but measure it in miles per (imperial) gallon - so it doesnt even tie up with American figures.

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this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
464 points (100.0% liked)

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